Guild Wars 2

More info @:

• 20/20/30/0/0: The Best Lockdown Trait Spread?
• Lockdown Guide: Making People Hate You
• 4 Reasons to Play a Lockdown Mesmer
• Lockdown Gear/Utilities Discussion

THE MESMER OF OLD
Guild Wars 1 vets often fondly recount the Mesmer’s ability to shutdown and punish opponents, usually recalling the skill Blackout with sadistic smiles. Of course, GW1 was an entirely different game with it’s own rules and format that made the style work, but the question remains.. can it work in GW2?

We have an assortment of interrupts and dazes, easily able to stack 5-6 dazes in one build, we have traits that reward us for interrupting and dazing, hell.. the Runes of the Mesmer add a 33% daze duration. This all leads me to believe that Anet apparently means for the Mesmer to still be able to utilize such a role.

LOCKDOWN IN GW2
When you break combat down to its simplest terms, you find that almost everything can be mitigated in some way.

Movement – Cripple/Chill/Torment
Cooldowns – Chill/Interrupt
Projectiles – Reflect
Skill Use – Daze/Stun/Confusion/Blind
Healing – Poison
Damage – Weakness
AoE – Retaliation
Boons/Conditions – Removal

Mesmer have enough tools that we can quite easily shutdown any (and even all) of the above in a single build without having to sacrifice damage. Though a boss may be immune to daze/stun, Weakness, Vulnerability, & Chill (Debilitating dissipation, Scepter, Hydromancy Sigils) still cuts their damage by 50%, increases skill cooldowns, and more vulnerable to damage.

INTERRUPTS – TOO MUCH RANDOM, TOO LITTLE REWARD?
Again, this is where people disagree. In my experience with my Mind Crush build, interrupts aren’t as random as originally perceived. Nearly every skill has a cast time, and can thus be interrupted. Lets take the Mesmer Greatsword for example – Every attack can be interrupted by an aggressive lockdown build. Even most auto-attacks have a cast time and can be interrupted.

The thing I like about the interrupt traits is how well they can reward you for skilled use of dazes, for example:

Dazzling & Bountiful Interruption- 5 Vulnerability per daze (easily stacks to 25) combined with 5 might stacks per Interrupt? This setup both encourages dazing and rewards timing.

FROM THEN TO NOW…
When I first opened this thread, it was titled “Lockdown: The Underexplored Playstyle.” Then several months later, as lockdown started to climb in popularity and more and more lockdown Mesmer gathered it changed to “Lockdown: The Uncommon Playstyle.” Well now we’re to the point where lockdown is neither underexplored nor uncommon, it is a known playstyle that has established itself comfortably into the meta. Lockdown mesmer are now considered one of the most viable mesmer types, and thanks to the new Power Block trait lockdown is actually becoming a thing in PvE. How far we’ve come!

LIST OF INTERRUPT/LOCKDOWN (BLACKOUT) BUILDS

-Skcamow’s – Chillruption
-Chaos Archangel’s – Mind Crush
-theCOREYCOLAK’s – Stunway
-Dietzen’s – Confusing Shatter Damage
-Sensotix’s – tPvP Bountiful Interruption build.
-Slim Chance’s – EcchoRupt Build
-Dirame’s Shutdown Mesmer
-WindWalker’s CC AoE Interrupt Build
- Xaylin’s Ethereal Intervention

@Chaos (as usual) great thread
Is this idea more PvP focused? I ask because I think that’s where most of these builds originated.

LIST CONTINUED

-Lahel’s Condition/Lockdown
-Lysna’s Hybrid Lockdown
- Profano’s Hangover Shatter/Interrupt
-Blutstein’s Saracena’s Butterflies
-Kylia’s Lockdown 1 & 2
-Kylia’s Triforce (Awesome WvW zergbuster)
-skcamow’s Utility Wizard
- StickerHappy’s Bicurious Milf
—-

@skcamow: Well Ive been testing for PvP (Playing a stunWarrior made me curious as to how well Mesmer could pull off such a style. I love my StunMes so much more.) I have my doubts about it in dungeons but I bet it’d work in WvW too.

Just like Corey said in StunWay, after getting used to it I LOVE the playstyle. Mind Crush is hyper-aggressive(completely opposite of how I originally assumed the style to be) powerful, and lots of fun.

Yay I’ve been linked to
2 things to note for people.
1) watch for stability! Don’t blow cd’s when ot’s up!
2) play aggressively! A thing I had to get used to when coming from a relaxed playstyle of the condi build, is you have to get up in their face. Blow your cd’s! Daze the hell out of em and they will die! Mantra, pistol 5, mantra, F3 is already a lot of time where they can’t do jack. I’ve been enjoying this immensely thieves can’t stealth or kill you when dazed

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Cons (Under construction)

• Builds with passive effects.
  You can interrupt a heal, but not a heal overtime. Same problem with some AoE conditions.

[Reaper of Grenth] (human elite)
- AoE poison/chill, unblockable, reapplied every 3 sec
- 15 sec duration

I’ve been using this elite in wvw quite frequently as of late. Works very well against melee happy enemies with heals over time. Also, aura animation is beautiful D

Under the secondary playstyle section, you have power/lockdown and condition/lockdown. How about support/lockdown? I came up with a build awhile back and put it on the back burner to eventually get in PvP and test. I haven’t yet but hey I’ll post it here to see what ya’ll think. Mantras I know have a terrible reputation in PvP but if there is a build where mantras might work, it might be something like this where your opponents are stunned/dazed so often and long.

Just trying to imagine a heavily contested point with two teams going at each other – restorative mantras could be a lifesaver. The theory w/mantras in this build is (depending on the one you’re charging) you can fire off 3 dazes, condi clears or heals while charging another. Constant stream of lockdown (and thus, healing). Condition removal is probably overkill but it’s the meta we live in. One stun breaker – blink or decoy.

The build would be macro intensive and again, only theory at this point. Thoughts on a support/lockdown idea?
http://tinyurl.com/n6d9ynd

EDIT: An interesting and maybe better alternative would be to swap duelist’s discipline with DE and mender’s purity with vigorous revelation (or maybe just the DE change). Lots of shatter support then and you only lose out on pistol range/CD’s and extra condi-removal. Could play either way.

First time in the english forum yay \(^-^)/

I was in PvP and thinking about new ideas for my tPvP-Mesmer and I saw all these traits ’bout stun here, daze there, stun when dazed…. and I was like: “That sounds awesome, why is nobody using it?”

And so I made a Condition-Interrupt-Build-Thingy (‘cause I don’t like direct dmg … don’t ask me why). Here’s the link to what build I ran:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.0|6.1b.h16.0.0.0|b.1b.h1l.a.1b.hd.0.0.0|1b.7a.1b.7a.1b.7a.1b.7a.1b.7a.1b.7a|1b.0.1b.0.1b.0.1b.67.1b.67.1b.0|u26c.0.a3.0.u47c|0.0|31.3c.3h.3k.0|e

The “Confounding Suggestions”-trait in Domination is what I really like. During Chaos Storm, you have the chance to daze your foe 5 times! (okay, realistically it’s only 2 or 3 times, but nonetheless, it’s great) and with CS also stun him at least 1 time.
Magic bullet stuns AND dazes and maybe stuns again and with “Imbued Diversion” you can stun and interrupt up to 5 targets and apply a hell of vulnerability – so the idea is:
- take dmg of your group with stun and daze
- strategically interrupt foes (stomp, AoE-Heal of guardians,…)
- support by applying vulnerability so your team deals more dmg
- “Arcane Thievery” – awesome for taking Might and other usefull boons and for taking away stability so you can daze and stun

I must admit, I had a few problems with thiefes ‘cause what you can’t see, you can’t stun and I’m rare with condition remove’s, so condi-builds are a problem as well – but in 2 or 3 vs X it works really well, with good timing and a bit luck your foe is doomed to inaction while you break their whole team.

Even in PvE you can stun most champions when their “Defiant” effect wears out and when you watch (here again, you have to recognize attack patterns and movement) when boss X is starting his AoE attack, so you can interrupt him and your team is safe. That is at least my experience with the build I posted.

You’re right when you say it’s a difficult stile, but only difficult to those who only want to deal a lot of dmg. If you go for lockdown, your primary duty is to stun and interrupt, not deal dmg. Once you get used to the idea of standing in the back (or at least try ^^") and “only” stun and watch out for enemy actions that you HAVE TO interrupt (like I said stomp or AoE-guardian-Heal) the whole Lockdown-Mesmer-Idea is really, really strong.

@skcamow – You know, after reading Revelation’s thread, I’ve had the idea to look at builds for more of a primary/secondary role so I may have to edit that part. I think choosing what’s the primary role and secondary role of a build between Damage/Support/Control, would help narrow a build’s focus and make it more effective, and a Control/Support build seems like it’d be better tailored for WvW.

For a group fight, I’d grab the focus/staff. Focus’s pull can interrupt multiple people at once, and of course the Warden shuts down projectiles while the curtain gives AoE swiftness. Staff’s Chaos Storm procs dazes, does decent AoE damage (2k-3k if all 6 hits proc) and drops all the other debilitating conditions while buffing allies. It’s perfect for a Control/Support build, and I’ll definitely look into that concept more. And yeah, grabbing Deceptive Evasion is practically crucial. I’d also throw in Vigorous Revelation/Medic’s Feedback over Mender’s Purity for more team support. MoResolve should be enough condi removal.. Also, I think Decoy would be a better bet over Blink for the extra clone and the free mantra charge while stealth’d. Ugh, it feels like Bountiful Interruption would be pretty crucial in a support/lockdown build but then you’d sacrifice a slot for Signet of Inspiration.

@Yunalesca: Awesome, I’ll add the build to the list but.. Halting Strike is much better for power-based builds. Rending Shatter or Crippling Dissipation would add a bit more control. Crippling Dissipation is especially good for keeping enemies from running away and slowing down Thieves.

Still haven’t tried in PvE yet. It’ll be interesting to test how we can manipulate Defiant with all the dazes/stuns.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

For a group fight, I’d grab the focus/staff. Focus’s pull can interrupt multiple people at once, and of course the Warden shuts down projectiles while the curtain gives AoE swiftness. Staff’s Chaos Storm procs dazes, does decent AoE damage (2k-3k if all 6 hits proc) and drops all the other debilitating conditions while buffing allies. It’s perfect for a Control/Support build, and I’ll definitely look into that concept more. And yeah, grabbing Deceptive Evasion is practically crucial. I’d also throw in Vigorous Revelation/Medic’s Feedback over Mender’s Purity for more team support. MoResolve should be enough condi removal.. Also, I think Decoy would be a better bet over Blink for the extra clone and the free mantra charge while stealth’d. Ugh, it feels like Bountiful Interruption would be pretty crucial in a support/lockdown build but then you’d sacrifice a slot for Signet of Inspiration.

As most of of the lockdown builds I’ve seen have been, well, focused on locking down opponents (awesome), I added some AoE healing into the mix. The AoE lockdown wouldn’t be too bad with the big counter blade orb, magic bullet and the scepter “AoE in a line” blind. Maybe lockdown/healer would be a better category.

To your suggestion, if you want staff CD’s and bountiful interruption, we have to do a major point shift. If not, you could keep the same trait setup, go Staff/Sw(or Sc)-F, taking the focus purely for the pull every 25s. To get reflects, drop mantra heals for warden’s feedback, and it’s really different at that point. Lockdown builds have a very focused role as you stated in the OP and it seems to me if you try to do too much, it’s not as much of a “lockdown” build. That said, your mind crush build has some of the elements you referred to. This (just threw together) may reflect your support ideas a little more: http://tinyurl.com/nxusowf.

Would have to determine what’s more “supportive”, shattered concentration or vigorous revelation. Could use iDisenchanter to boon strip, though SC is better.

I actually have another bunker PvP build I’m testing (inspired from an idea Keenlam had) which I believe handles all the “utility” things you’re referring to, but not interrupt/lockdown focused.

UPDATED 9/17/13

Quite a bit of Lockdown builds surfacing, which is always great to see! The more I research and practice the lockdown playstyle the more convinced I become of it’s viability. There’s definitely some very strong concepts here..

Anyone have any more stories of why they like/dislike/haven’t tried the Lockdown playstyle? I wanna see if we can gather the opinions of as many different players as possible.

Its been like 3 weeks since i first tried the Mind Crush and Bouniful Interuption builds… From day 1 i was simply in love wih them :O. Although I did feel like my damage was underwhelming, and “faceroll mode” was too hard to pull off relatively to a high damage spec.

I loved the build so much, that I even made a duelling video on my first day :D. However, after nearly completing it and watching it like 25 times, I feel like… I played so horribly bad xD. Its literally filled with silly mistakes, but still funny to watch :D.

That said… After 3 weeks of exsrensively using lockdown builds, i became alot better at both faceroll mode and high end duelling, havent tried tournaments though.

I plan to make a better video at some point ^__^. I also need an additional person who can record, but Ill find someone later, probably.
If anyone skilled with any profession wants to duel me, dont be afraid to PM me! I won’t bite, for now.

edit: i just realised i completely drifted of the subject of this thread, and i already forgot what i said >__<. I should stop posting when im tired :C

While I certainly enjoyed playing lockdown/interrupt builds in GW1, I don’t see it being prominent in GW2 – at least for PvE. Which is a shame, considering how they’re attempting to buff it’s viability.

Champion mobs, and their defiant stacks, make traiting for interrupts seemingly useless. I have no desire to blow multiple cooldowns to drop all those stacks and get off one or two Halting Strikes before Defiant is reapplied. Perhaps it’s useful against trash mobs, but who really designs a build catered to trash?

Lockdown is clearly useless in PvE, the point of lockdown builds would be to use them in WvW and sPvP against other players, who use skills constantly and have no Defiant..

I like the thought process behind all of this.

I think you should add “Enemy is Asura” to cons

5k Damage and 5 stacks of confusion (1.1k condi damage with no might) on interrupt

Shut down builds are fun

Ilona Frostfire – Lockdown and interrupt mesmer since BWE1!

Lahel.6381:

I like the thought process behind all of this.

I think you should add “Enemy is Asura” to cons

I would’ve, but so far in my experience it doesn’t really matter as much. I think that’s the difference the idea of a “Lockdown Build” vs an “Interrupt Build”

Lockdown is an aggressive style, you don’t want your enemy doing anything without being punished for it. Chill/Cripple/Weakness/Blind/Confusion/Daze/Stun/Pull&Push… You want to chain dazes, you want to knock the enemy back and forth, you want them moving slower, their cooldowns taking longer, ect. All these tools are better applied proactively rather than in reaction to the enemy. Your level of control shouldn’t be dictated by how often you can interrupt.

Interrupts are a reward for strategic Lockdown. If I use swap from iLeap to immobilize, my next move will likely be Distraction [F3] as since I’m in Melee range, the enemy will try and hit me hard: lo’ and behold here comes my clone running up to daze before they can attempt anything. Swap to staff (hydromancy), phase retreat away, and drop Chaos Storm on a group. Somewhere in there pop a daze mantra.

With Mind Crush in that small rotation, you just AoE immobilized, dazed (w/5x vuln), removed a boon, AoE chilled, Chaos Storm’d (all kinds of debilitating shiz), and dazed again.

Three potential interrupts in that rotation could’ve netted you more vuln, 15x might, ect. Interrupts are the icing, but not the cake itself. You can’t make a build around icing.

Edit: Oh wait. I can just lazy-man-quote myself:

- A thing of note about Lockdown builds… Try to make sure whatever kind of Lockdown build you have can be strong on its own without interrupts.

For example: Mind Crush does very good damage via Shatters and Phantasms, has good lockdown/control via chain-dazes, Weakness/Vuln on clone deaths, and Chaos Storm, can rapidly strip enemy boons and stack vulnerability, and has AoE condition removal. These traits alone make it a strong build, but the rewards for nailing interrupts (5x Might / 3x Vuln / Instant 2k+ damage on interrupt) makes it that much better.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Distraction [F3]

Mantras mixed with shatters … good combo huh?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

With Mind Crush in that small rotation, you just AoE immobilized, dazed (w/5x vuln), removed a boon, AoE chilled, Chaos Storm’d (all kinds of debilitating shiz), and dazed again.

Hm, how did you AoE immobilize? Just making sure I’m not missing something …

iLeap is an AoE immobilize.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

iLeap is an AoE immobilize.

Really? I never realized that.
EDIT: Helps to read the tooltip. /facepalm

I’m starting to see now exactly how much shutdown Mesmer have at their disposal. We can screw up enemy movement (cripple), cooldowns, lock out skills (daze, interrupts, chill), reflect projectiles, punish for attacking (confusion), stack Vuln like a madman (Dazzling), boon removal among other things.. Hell, in taking a second look at the Domination line I see that there are some really excellent options there. I know this is all common knowledge, but I’m really seeing how Lockdown is so much more than dazes/interrupts. Interrupts are actually a minimal aspect when you consider all the possibilities we have to make control-heavy builds.

Right now I’m looking at Crippling Dissipation, Debilitating Dissipation, a traited staff and focus, some hydromancy sigils, and a way to remove conditions/boons (Null field and Shattered Concentration) in a sort of 20/20/10/20/0 Lockdown build with Decoy, Nullfield, and Feedback. (Inspired in part by Chillruption)

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’m starting to see now exactly how much shutdown Mesmer have at their disposal. We can screw up enemy movement (cripple), cooldowns, lock out skills (daze, interrupts, chill), reflect projectiles, punish for attacking (confusion), stack Vuln like a madman (Dazzling), boon removal among other things.. Hell, in taking a second look at the Domination line I see that there are some really excellent options there. I know this is all common knowledge, but I’m really seeing how Lockdown is so much more than dazes/interrupts. Interrupts are actually a minimal aspect when you consider all the possibilities we have to make control-heavy builds.

Right now I’m looking at Crippling Dissipation, Debilitating Dissipation, a traited staff and focus, some hydromancy sigils, and a way to remove conditions/boons (Null field and Shattered Concentration) in a sort of 20/20/10/20/0 Lockdown build with Decoy, Nullfield, and Feedback. (Inspired in part by Chillruption)

The disruption we can create is significant. I believe Anet knew exactly what they were doing when they designed mesmer and that we just haven’t fully explored all the possibilities yet (even after a year and without too drastic trait changes).

So would you consider this a variant of Mind Crush? I personally like the change taking bountiful interruption out (gasp!). The nature of the build is passively altruistic so gaining all those boons on interrupt, while very nice for yourself, doesn’t help the team. Now if you’re going about playing solo que and such, yeah. But I personally wouldn’t take the trait in a team comp unless there was a way to share the goods.

Going 20 into inspiration gives the build a utility spice which is nice. Obviously if null field helps with the condi-removal then yeah. Assume you’re taking mender’s purity in adept and glamour CD’s in master?

I’ve been playing around a little with a spec like this:

20/20/30

Lahel.6381:

I’ve been playing around a little with a spec like this:

20/20/30

PU traits but no PU? You might be on to something with that build I am just worried about your defensive capabilities.

I’ve had very little trouble in 1v1’s and most 1v2’s.
Thought behind it is, to burst someone with conditions and then lock em down when they try to heal.

@Lahel: I like the look of that. I actually think Condition builds are better suited for control-heavy playstyles (due to Torment/Confusion/Weakness/Blind/Poison/Cripple/Chill being strong control-heavy conditions.) A couple things though…

- How much damage are you getting from Halting Strike? In a zerker build, it does a bit over 2k per interrupt, if its not doing over 1.5k then it’s not worth taking over Crippling Dissipation(Dom V). Dissipation will compound another condition (making it harder to remove the damaging conditions) in addition to the AoE Cripple that’s the bane of melee classes everywhere.

- You’ve got Duelist, and Phantasmal Fury, but no Ethereal combo fields. Null Field may work better for you over Arcane Thievery. Even if the Pistol is untraited, it’ll still be proccing confusion from inside the field. And you’ll be able to grab Chaos Armor (more conditions) for additional ways to punish people.

- This is PURELY an estimate, but I think the Doom sigil would be better used on the Scepter, since it’ll be easier to tag people with it rather than sword.

@Skcamow: Nah, I wouldn’t be able to call it a variant of Mind Crush because the playstyle is too radically different. Mind Crush combines BI, Dazzling, and interrupt traits for extra high damage and has all those dazes for mostly single-target lockdown with some convenient AoE. This build is more geared towards teamfights and shuts down completely different things (mobility and projectiles). For Inspiration, Mender’s Purity wouldn’t do me too good since I’m not taking Mantra heals, so I’m going Glamour/Focus cooldowns. Still unsure of the runes though.

Hah, you did say traited focus didn’t you.
For sigils, you mentioned hydromancy which sounds like a good choice or energy for perma-clones since you’re going for some clone on death traits.
Runes … could go with some passive condition management ones like hoelbrak or melandru.

UPDATED - 9/23/13

I’ve given a bit of thought to the following posts, and edited the OP to reflect my opinion.

Innuendo.8674:

While I certainly enjoyed playing lockdown/interrupt builds in GW1, I don’t see it being prominent in GW2 – at least for PvE. Which is a shame, considering how they’re attempting to buff it’s viability.

Champion mobs, and their defiant stacks, make traiting for interrupts seemingly useless. I have no desire to blow multiple cooldowns to drop all those stacks and get off one or two Halting Strikes before Defiant is reapplied. Perhaps it’s useful against trash mobs, but who really designs a build catered to trash?

Valarauka.2719:

Lockdown is clearly useless in PvE, the point of lockdown builds would be to use them in WvW and sPvP against other players, who use skills constantly and have no Defiant..

Defiant stops dazes, pulls, stuns ect, but those two are far from our only forms of control. I’d argue that Weakness & Vulnerability are also very important against bosses. Weakness potentially cuts damage by 50% and Vuln, of course adds up to 25% more damage. Combined with Blind/Chill (Skills [and movement] take 66% longer to cooldown) before big attacks and you’ve got some considerable lockdown that works even in PvE.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@Lahel: I like the look of that. I actually think Condition builds are better suited for control-heavy playstyles (due to Torment/Confusion/Weakness/Blind/Poison/Cripple/Chill being strong control-heavy conditions.) A couple things though…

- How much damage are you getting from Halting Strike? In a zerker build, it does a bit over 2k per interrupt, if its not doing over 1.5k then it’s not worth taking over Crippling Dissipation(Dom V). Dissipation will compound another condition (making it harder to remove the damaging conditions) in addition to the AoE Cripple that’s the bane of melee classes everywhere.

I think it’s between 1k-1.3k. You raise a fair point with crippling dissipation, I might try that out

- You’ve got Duelist, and Phantasmal Fury, but no Ethereal combo fields. Null Field may work better for you over Arcane Thievery. Even if the Pistol is untraited, it’ll still be proccing confusion from inside the field. And you’ll be able to grab Chaos Armor (more conditions) for additional ways to punish people.

Personal prefference I think, I like arcane thievery for the condi removal as well as the boon steal. I forgot about the chaos armor combo with iLeap, may look into it

- This is PURELY an estimate, but I think the Doom sigil would be better used on the Scepter, since it’ll be easier to tag people with it rather than sword.

Eventhough it’s on the sword the poison is only a buff so doesnt matter which skill I use afterwards, it will poison if it does damage regardless.

skcamow.3527:

Hah, you did say traited focus didn’t you.
For sigils, you mentioned hydromancy which sounds like a good choice or energy for perma-clones since you’re going for some clone on death traits.
Runes … could go with some passive condition management ones like hoelbrak or melandru.

Was thinking of using Orrian Truffle & Meat Stew for my dodging concerns so I can stick with the Hydromancy sigils. I’m leaning towards 2x Ice /2x Sanctuary /2x Svanir and a chill sigil… I really wanna push that chill.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

skcamow.3527:

Hah, you did say traited focus didn’t you.
For sigils, you mentioned hydromancy which sounds like a good choice or energy for perma-clones since you’re going for some clone on death traits.
Runes … could go with some passive condition management ones like hoelbrak or melandru.

Was thinking of using Orrian Truffle & Meat Stew for my dodging concerns so I can stick with the Hydromancy sigils. I’m leaning towards 2x Ice /2x Sanctuary /2x Svanir and a chill sigil… I really wanna push that chill.

Gotcha, sorry I was thinking more PvP. Yeah that looks good – I see the chillruption inspiration now. I would say, just be careful stacking that chill duration. When I tried that I found I started really lacking power to bring things down. I ended up with 30% condition duration with an extra 20% chill. It extends chill via hydromancy by a full second, by 1/2 second from chaos storm and a full second from CI procs. 50% seemed like the sweet spot for me, your mileage may vary and maybe that would work better in a team comp. I will also say those hydromancy sigils do a decent amount of damage in power builds.

There’s a lot of chill focus for 2 procs – I can’t say a whole lot there compared with my build, but chaotic interruption proc’d it often enough, I thought it was worthy of the chill build title/focus.

Lahel.6381:

I’ve been playing around a little with a spec like this:

20/20/30

I just tried that spec, with a few minor tweaks and I’m using Sword/Focus+Staff…..

OMFG…This is my new WvW build. :O

Chaos Archangel.5071:

skcamow.3527:

Hah, you did say traited focus didn’t you.
For sigils, you mentioned hydromancy which sounds like a good choice or energy for perma-clones since you’re going for some clone on death traits.
Runes … could go with some passive condition management ones like hoelbrak or melandru.

Was thinking of using Orrian Truffle & Meat Stew for my dodging concerns so I can stick with the Hydromancy sigils. I’m leaning towards 2x Ice /2x Sanctuary /2x Svanir and a chill sigil… I really wanna push that chill.

Theres a food that has a 40% to inflict chill on crit for no cooldown :O.

Heres the link: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ghost_Pepper_Popper

Its also very cheap, maybe like 1silver each!

Thanks Alissah, I had no idea about that! (Chill only procs at night though =/ )

@skcamow: You raise a good point about stacking too much duration, and I’ll definitely be experimenting (6x Ice runes also tempting me) to see how much works best. The two procs -three with Chaos Storm- are exactly why I wanna try to stack as much duration as possible if I can’t get more chill frequency. If I’m swapping constantly, then at 90% chill duration my chills should last for nearly 5 seconds. An almost 50% chill up time in addition to the constant cripple.

The goal is to make their melee skills take longer to recharge, hinder movement, and nullify boons & projectiles in group fights. I plan on having Chaos Armor on nearly all the time(Hoping for Blinds/Cripple) and should provide enough team support with the heavy control, 3 Ethereal Combo fields + 1 Light field, and AoE condition removal.

Going Zerker in Sword/Sword should also give me a decent amount of damage and a daze every 10 secs while Staff will provide my defense.

(Goal is for the build to be viable in PvE, PvP, AND WvW)

Been testing Crippling dissipation over Halting strike during the day now in my 20/20/30 BI CI spec, and it’s been working out great. Have been running into trouble with skilled evasion thiefs (stealth thiefs no problems what so ever).

Back on point though, I noticed quite early that the damage from Halting strike was not missed in my condition damage heavy gear and if I did take it, it would just be like icing on a cake, nice to have but not crucial.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Thanks Alissah, I had no idea about that! (Chill only procs at night though =/ )

@skcamow: You raise a good point about stacking too much duration, and I’ll definitely be experimenting (6x Ice runes also tempting me) to see how much works best. The two procs -three with Chaos Storm- are exactly why I wanna try to stack as much duration as possible if I can’t get more chill frequency. If I’m swapping constantly, then at 90% chill duration my chills should last for nearly 5 seconds. An almost 50% chill up time in addition to the constant cripple.

The goal is to make their melee skills take longer to recharge, hinder movement, and nullify boons & projectiles in group fights. I plan on having Chaos Armor on nearly all the time(Hoping for Blinds/Cripple) and should provide enough team support with the heavy control, 3 Ethereal Combo fields + 1 Light field, and AoE condition removal.

Going Zerker in Sword/Sword should also give me a decent amount of damage and a daze every 10 secs while Staff will provide my defense.

(Goal is for the build to be viable in PvE, PvP, AND WvW)

I tried 6x runes of Ice for awhile because of the great chill utility on #4, really CHEAP cost, and I needed a vitality boost. I run 4x currently plus 2x lyssa runes to still retain 4 chill procs. The 6th slot is excellent for power builds as well. 5% extra damage versus chilled foes is tasty.

Your build in principle sounds eerily similar to one I’ve been testing in PvP the past couple weeks, but a semi-bunker spec. Will have to compare notes when I get the thread up.

Warlord and I got around to running some initial tests last night. Though we were dueling, it looks like it’ll be really disruptive in a team fight.

- Runes of Ice are butt, going 2x/2x/2x for chill duration worked better.
-Sigil of ice is … meh. Sigil of Hydromancy more consistent and reliable.
- The Chill itself is pretty nice. about 50% chill duration when done right, and the cripples/weakness just make it that much more dangerous

Still have’t tried a condition variant, but its looking like it’ll work better as a condition build. Either way it brings a lot of AoE control through clone deaths/ staff/AoE chills. Definitely seems workable for WvW

Hi, sorry for my bad english, i’m french

I love this thread. I play a little different lockdown build, with staff / scepter and sword.
It’s a mix condition / power build.

domination : 30 (III, V, XI)
dueling : 20 (IV, VI : i have 2850 of toughness when i cast a mantra, it’s good)
chaos : 20 (V, VIII)

My equipment is a mixt rabid, assassin and celestial armor and weapons. I use rune of perplexity. Stats : 60 % prowess, 50% crit and damage condition 750.

Food : Koi Cake (+100% confusion and +70% other condition) or Chocolate Omnomberry Cream (defensive build)

I play with ether feast (or mantra of recovery ; three mantra, it’s a real challenge), blink, mantra of distraction and mantra of resolve. Elite : mass invisibility (it’s a personal choice).

I love this build for his possibility defensive (mobility, good produc’ of clones, lockdown…) and offensive (decent damage).

Other possibility :

weapons : Sword/Pistol and Scepter/Sword
domination : 30 (II, III, XI)
dueling : 20 (IV, VII)
chaos : 20 (V, VIII)
Skills : mantra of recovery, decoy, mantra of distraction and mantra of resolve. Elite : mass invisibility

PS : /reverence for add this build

UPDATED 10/1/13

Added 3 builds (2 from this very post)

- Starting to get curious about our blind potential. Signet of Midnight, Blinding Befuddlement, Torch .. A lot of AoE blinds that could be weaved into a build. Anyone messed around with this?

Eyyy, mine is in there, I’m honored ^^

So I theory crafted a build taking advantage of all the blinds we have (Except for the blind that could be triggered by Chaos armor) I didn’t put gear on it because I was just trying to go for maximum blinds along with BB. But it doesn’t look that bad

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRArf8alwzSoHTzoGb9IBKFXv6kU46XXSBvzNA

I mixed up Blinding Beffudlement with Dazzling Glamours like a fool. -_- Been on a roll today. Anyways, since our most rapid blind is on the Scepter, I wanted to double-trait it for quicker access to Blind/Torment. Glamours already give good team support, so adding the control of an AoE blind ontop of that would also be a big help (plus AoE chaos armor with BLAST finisher). I had in mind something like..

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArfWlwzSoXVTqGb9IxJFMX6oecdrndSKcNrB

Now there’s a couple problems with that setup that I’m still trying to iron out. I like the 20 Inspiration/25 Illusions, so I’ll likely keep that, but everything else can be switched around. I really want Shattered Concentration because IMO its one of our best lockdown traits for PvP, but then I lose out on traited Torch.

The main issue here is that I’m not sure what would be the best way to apply damage. It obviously looks Condition-based with Scepter-Torch and all these blinds, and I love me some staff.. so maybe

I’ve been waiting to post this until I’ve fully tested it, but what the heck, it’s very close. This is a bunker build I’ve been rolling with for 3 weeks in PvP. I’ve tried a condition and power variant (this is the power one) and seems to work a little better. It’s a blind spamming concept based off a brilliant keenlam idea from the old bunker thread you posted Chaos. Here’s the build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsdWlwzSoXVTqGb9IhJF9G5nZw8ljmB2tOA-TsAgzCtIAS5lzLDQyusdN+Y9xECA

It works marvelously. Damage is generally better in the power build going clerics/soldier. When I run the condition variant, it’s 20/20/30, the exact Illusion traits you have and shammy amulet. On both builds I switch out SoM for the disenchanter, just depending on the team comp and if I need to handle boon stripping or condition management more. The massive blind spam negates a great deal of damage so there is a lot of built in defense there. That, with regen ticking at 275 consistently for all party members on a point provides a great passive condition defense.

With all the etheral fields, you maintain a large chaos armor uptime (more blinds/regen/swiftness/protection!) using iLeap/Swap and phase retreat. The boon duration runes work well to keep regen and protection up as long as possible. On the condition variant I use the boon duration setup or runes of the forge which rock for protection and provide nice burning synergy with a condition setup.

My build’s inspiration was to make a “utility wizard” to help bunker a point or roam. So, I took the blind spam idea and paired it with massive reflects. You can hold points for awhile.

Pyro and I were theory-crafting a new idea the other night for his immortal build then got dueling to try it out, against this build. He can probably state the build’s effectiveness. I think we went 2 duels lasting 15 minutes apiece, none able to bring the other down (dat dang retaliation! would bring disenchanter next time).

So I’ve just browsed through the entire list of Lockdown build above and, in general, have a couple of questions:

1. Why don’t many, if any, build use Signet of Domination? I would have thought that such a long-duration Stun at 0.25 s cast time would be a staple.

2. Does anybody know if Shattered Concentration is affected by Imbued Diversion, i.e. with both traited, Diversion now causes AoE boon removal?

Yes Oji.
My “Hangover” build use that trait for a massive debuff shatter.

Ojimaru.8970:

So I’ve just browsed through the entire list of Lockdown build above and, in general, have a couple of questions:

1. Why don’t many, if any, build use Signet of Domination? I would have thought that such a long-duration Stun at 0.25 s cast time would be a staple.

I used it at first in my build, for a long time actually, and really loved it. Yet in my experience it falls short of Mantra of Distraction for a couple reasons.

• MoDistraction is on a lower cooldown.
• MoDistraction offers two instant interrupts which makes it the best way to interrupt enemy heals.
• MoDistraction, being an instant, can be used in the middle of other skills or while you’re under pressure.

That four second stun is great, and if I had another slot I would’ve definitely equipped it (I run 2x sigils of paralyzation so the stun would be 5 seconds for me) and in some team battles where I can trust condition removal isn’t much of an issue, I do take it.

But the fact is, lockdown is too versatile to only focus on one aspect. Dazes/Stuns are great, but boon removal (Null Field) is also very important, reflects are hella important, Blind/Weakness/ect.

@Skcamow: Wow that looks interesting, but if bunker why Phantasmal Strength over iPersona? And you just made me realize.. that blind build I posted may make a pretty kitten decent bunker.

@Profano: “Hangover” haha nice name. I shall add to the list. Have you tried Debilitating Dissipation. I’ve found its really decent for crippling melee opponents’ DPS.

@Chaos, I suppose you could go either IP or phantasmal strength – I could switch depending on what I’m doing. I personally went with the latter due to the simple fact that I need all the help I can get to kill things. I find shatter skills come off CD very quickly and I’m rarely in a situation where I don’t have multiple illusions up intentionally (to keep regen stacking). So I’m not sure IP would help me too much, but I should play around with it to see.

Yep, blind spamming builds such as these make decent bunkers (not amazing). Been going for a few weeks and it’s honestly taken that long playing around with it to say the power build seems to be the best (though I started out on the condition build). Here is that one for reference:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArdWlwzSoXVTqGb9IhJFBH5nUw8lj6B4zu1B-TsAg2CuI8S1lrLjXyjsHN+Y9xsBA

You are traited out a bit differently than my condition variant and you use torch. I thought about torch due to the extra blind on the prestige, but I didn’t for 2 reasons:

1. I really wanted an all around utility build for (hopefully someday) a tPvP team, which is why I went the focus/reflects route.
2. The prestige stealths you and I wanted to do my best to create a build with as much protection uptime as possible without having to rely on stealth due to the negative impact when capping points. I suppose this could be somewhat mitigated by revealing instantly for the burn.

But that aside, yeah I can see it working. I know you’re pretty attached to shattered concentration, but I would swap that with torch CD’s, as I don’t see the build being shatter focused (of course you may play differently). You also get some nice AoE iMage utility with retaliation and condition cleanses on all those bounces (enhanced further by IE).

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@Profano: “Hangover” haha nice name. I shall add to the list. Have you tried Debilitating Dissipation. I’ve found its really decent for crippling melee opponents’ DPS.

Thank you Chaos. DiM can be easily replaced with DD, i think is just a play style.

The Hangover is a WvW build, created for +20 men alliance group with 1 role, debuff the enemy frontline during inc.

Debilitating Dissipation is very usefull but often i attack jumping from above, i can be pushed toward a cliff, or i need to run away from the blob.
“Descent into Madness” is a bit better for me; protect from falls, buff AoE and can daze.

P.S. DD stack only with clones;
the build use clones just for shatter, and don’t use Deceptive Evasion.

@skcamow: Keep us updated on the progress, I’d try the build out but with the Mantra build I’m working on when the patch comes out, school coming up, and me jotting down a list of builds I wanna try, idk when I’d get around to it.

@Profano: True. DD is great with Deceptive Evasion, but still pretty good without it but for your purposes I can definitely see why you’d prefer DiM